Category: Best Sega Genesis Games

Road Rash for the Sega Genesis

Road Rash was released in 1991 by Electronic Arts (EA) for the Sega Genesis. It’s a classic motorcycle racing / fighting game. The goal is to finish each race in the top position by any means necessary. You can attack your opponents with your bare fists or with weapons.

There are eight different bikes you can choose from. You start out with a bike and by winning races you earn money that you can use to purchase other bikes. Once you can get a fast bike it’s a lot more fun to race.

You can attack other racers by driving them off the road or into oncoming traffic. If beating racers down with your fists isn’t enough you can use chains or big clubs.

The gameplay has you racing on the following California roads:

Sierra Nevada
Pacific Coast
Redwood Forest
Palm Desert
Grass Valley

Road Rash is a must have if you like racing or fighting games. It’s a very inexpensive and fun game to add to your collection.

The Sword of Vermilion is a classic Sega Genesis role playing game (RPG) that was released in 1990.

You play as Erik the prince of Excalabria. Your father, King Erik IV was killed by the evil wizard Tsarkon. Due to this, Prince Erik was raised by Blade, one of King Erik’s best warriors. You have been raised to defeat Tsarkon, thereby saving the kingdom and avenge your father’s death.

The gameplay of Sword of Vermilion is that of an action RPG. It doesn’t have a menu based fighting style which makes the gameplay more fast paced. You get to control Erik during the battles hacking and slashing and casting magic spells.

The graphics look nice and show a lot of detail for an early 16bit title. The end bosses are especially well drawn and some of them take up almost the whole screen. The sound effects and music are well done. The definitely sound like it’s a Sega Genesis title but that in my opinion is a good thing.

It’s a fairly long game. You are required to level up your Erik in order to defeat stronger enemies in the various areas. Being and RPG from 1990 there are random battle encounters that some RPG fan hate. To me it’s the only way I know from growing up on games like this so I don’t find that to be a bad thing.

When this game was released it was fairly expensive (I paid around $80 for it new). Today you can pick it up for less than $10 complete in the box which is well worth it in my opinion. It’s a fun game that is challenging and the story is well done.

Phantasy Star 2 Gameplay Video

Phantasy Star 2 was the Genesis’ Final Fantasy. If you liked RPGs back in the day and had a Genesis chances are you played Phantasy Star 2. It was the sequel to the classic released for the Sega Master System in 1987. Phantasy Star was known for having great graphics and it was one of the first story driven games released in the US. The second game is twice as long as the first one. It takes place 1,000 years after the first one.

Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 1991 by Sega for the Sega Genesis. Sonic the Hedgehog become know as one of the best platfomer games ever. It was definitely Sega’s biggest hit for the Genesis and the character Sonic has spawned countless sequels and spin offs. It sold more than 4 million copies for the Genesis.

The story goes that Sonic is trying to save his friends and the world from the evil Dr. Robotnik. The evil doctor is trying to collect chaos emeralds. Whomever has possession of all of the chaos emeralds could easily take over the world. Dr. Robotnik is transforming animals into monsters so Sonic needs to save all the animals and defeat Dr. Robotnik.

The gameplay is easy to pick up and fun to play. It’s a game that people of all ages enjoyed playing. Each stage is filled with rings that can be collected and used as Sonic’s energy. If you get damaged by an enemy and have rings Sonic will lose the rings but they can be recollected if you’re fast enough. If you don’t have any rings and you get damaged from an enemy you will lose a life. If you pass act one or two with more than fifty rings you have the chance to jump into a giant ring at the end of the stage for a bonus level.

Sonic can roll up into a ball and go through loops and jumps with great speed. The speed of the gameplay is what led to Sega calling it “Blast processing”.

Sonic the Hedgehog gave Sega a game that was quality enough to compete with Nintendo’s immensely popular Mario. It wasn’t uncommon to see Sega and Nintendo comparing Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog.

As far as collecting goes if you don’t have Sonic the Hedgehog it’s very inexpensive to buy on eBay. You can find the loose cartridge for around $5.00.